by Richard Drawhorn
If search engines detect duplicate content on your web site, it can have an adverse effect on your rankings. When a search engine finds the same content on more than one page, they tend to consider it a form of spam. In this post, I’ll review some of the ways duplicate content may appear on your site and a few strategies to avoid being penalized by search engines.
In general, the rule of thumb to follow when creating content for your web site is this:
The same content should never be available from more than one URL.
If your web site is violating the above rule, then the site’s search engine rankings may be suffering as a result. Any blatant violations of this rule should be removed from your web site immediately. There are, however, a few scenarios that can result in duplicate content violations that are not intentional or even obvious. A few examples are presented below.
Multiple Domains
If you own more than one domain name and point these domains to the same page, a duplicate content problem can result. It’s fine to have multiple domains, but it’s important to use the correct type of redirect to point any additional domains you have to the primary domain. If a search engine finds the correct redirect, it will follow it, land on the primary domain’s page, and no duplicate content penalty will result. The proper redirect to use in these cases is called a 301 Redirect, which indicates that the requested page has been assigned a new permanent URL. By contrast, a 302 Redirect should only be used for pages that have been temporarily removed and will be restored in the future. Using the wrong type of redirect for your multiple domains will cause duplicate content penalties and possibly result in your web site being completely removed for a search engine’s index.
Dynamic URLs
Most search engines do not have any problem indexing dynamic URLs, which are typically associated with sites that are database driven. However, sometimes webmasters make the mistake of setting up the site so that the same content might be presented for several different dynamically generated URLs. This might occur if the content is delivered based on a selection of search parameters, for example. It’s important to avoid these types of situations, because search engines consider each of these dynamic URLs as unique. If duplicate content is found, then a penalty might be applied to the web site.
Sorting Content
Some web pages present content that can be sorted in various ways for the convenience of the user. For example, you might have a site that sells floor tiles and allow the various tile types to be sorted by texture, color, style, etc. The sorting feature is an excellent way to help your customer decide on the right floor tile, but it can cause duplicate content issues for your web site. Often, the various sort combinations are presented using different URLs, even though the core content of the pages are the same. Search engines do not distinguish the various sort pages as unique content, and consider these multiple URLs to be duplicate content. One good strategy to avoid this problem is to use your robots.txt file to allow only one of your sort options to be accessible to search engine spiders. Make use of web analytics to identify the page that has the highest customer conversion rate, and present only that page to search engines.
What if my web site content appears on other sites?
It sometimes happens that the content you present on your web site is posted on another site, like a blog site about the topic. For example, you might write an article that is published on several other web sites related to the article’s topic. Do these reproductions of your content result in a duplicate content penalty for your web site? Thankfully, the answer to that question is no. Search engines look at the hostname for these pages, and will typically only penalize a web site if the duplicate content pages are served up by the same host. In addition, search engines make efforts to locate the originating source of the content and present its URL in search results.
Conclusion
Duplicate content issues can be problematic for webmasters and possibly result in penalties that can lower search engine rankings. The good news is that these penalties are easy to avoid with a little education and understanding of how they can arise in the first place.
Tags: Domains, Dynamic URLS, Search Engine Optimization, SEO